Why is Chicago Called the "Windy City"? | Mental Floss Why is Chicago Called the "Windy City"? ThinkStock Like us on Facebook Travelers to Chicago may experience the wind gusts that come off Lake Michigan, get tossed around a bit and think, “So this is why it’s called the Windy City.” The nickname, which dates back to the late 1870s, is deceiving: Chicago is literally a windy city, but that’s not what the phrase was intended to reference. Talk to different people and you’ll get different answers, but most fingers point to Charles A. Dana, once the editor of the New York Sun—a paper published between 1833 and 1950—who wrote an editorial that said Chicago was windy because of its full-of-hot-air politicians. The Chicago Tribune even published a column in 2004 , which they hold as the “definitive article on the term,” giving Dana credit. During the time of Dana’s proclamation, Chicago and New York were competing to host the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

The Tribune’s column writes that the famous phrase comes from when Dana advocated against the “nonsensical claims of that windy city. Its people could not hold a world’s fair even if they won it.” The problem with using Dana as a source is that no one has ever been able to find this legendary editorial. Not even a date of publication. According to Barry Popik , a New York City parking-ticket judge by day and a word sleuth by night, he has found the true origins of the phrase . He came across an entry in a May 9, 1876 Cincinnati Enquirer article with the headline, “THAT WINDY CITY. Some of the Freaks of the Last Chicago Tornado.” Popik said the headline used innuendo to comment on the speakers who were full of wind and that there was a windstorm. This is the earliest found reference of Chicago being called the Windy City, predating Dana’s use of the phrase by a little more than a decade. Still, both the Tribune and the Chicago Public Library stand by the fact that Dana popularized the term, even if he didn’t coin it.

Why Is Chicago called 'The Windy City?' Why Is Chicago called 'The Windy City?' September 02, 2015 Copy and paste the embed code below. The code changes based on your selection. The code has been copied to your clipboard. Video size World Wide Words: Windy City Random page Windy City Q From John Branch: I’ve heard three explanations for the term Windy City as an epithet for Chicago, Illinois: the common assumption that it refers to the winds gusting through the city (understandable to anyone who’s been there); the boasting of Chicagoans to the rest of America about the glories of their rebuilt city after the Great Fire; and the blustering of Chicago politicians to the city’s inhabitants. My guess is that the first could easily be invention after the fact, while the last is too local to account for the term’s familiarity elsewhere. What do your sources tell you? A It is indeed often said that the word windy in the name refers to the long-winded and boastful speech of Chicago politicians. The story you will commonly find is that it dates to shortly before the great World’s Columbian Exhibition of 1893.

Chicago was putting forward its claim with great verve and bombast. This really got up the nose of people in New York, which was competing with Chicago to host the exhibition. Animosity became so bad that Charles A Dana, editor of the New York Sun, wrote an editorial telling New Yorkers to pay no attention to the “nonsensical claims of that windy city. Its people could not hold a world’s fair even if they won it”. The history books tell us that Chicago did win it and did hold it (and even made a profit from it). Books also tell us that the nickname of Windy City dates from that editorial. This story is wrong. There are several recorded instances of Chicago being called the Windy City before Mr Dana put his pen to paper. That we now have what looks like the real story is owed, as so often with American expressions, to Barry Popik, part-time parking judge and expert amateur word sleuth.

For example, he found this in the Chicago Tribune for 11 September 1886: “The name of ‘Windy City,’ which is sometimes used by village papers in New York and Michigan to designate Chicago, is intended as a tribute to the refreshing lake breezes of the great summer resort of the West, but is an awkward and rather ill-chosen expression and is doubtless misunderstood”. It has only recently been discovered that the term appears even earlier, in a headline on the front page of the Cleveland Gazette for 19 September 1885, reporting several items of news from Chicago, particularly a judicial decision: “From the Windy City: Judge Foote’s Civil Right decision”. For the nickname to be well enough known in Cleveland that it appeared in a headline without explanation indicates that it was by 1885 getting to be an established term. Mr Popik has suggested that the name actually originated in a scheme by the Chicago Tribune about that date to promote the city as a summer resort, using the cool breeze off the lake as the basis of its attraction. Before then, Chicago was usually nicknamed Garden City (its Latin motto was and is Urbs in Horto, “city in a garden”).

There seems to have been a shift from the old name to the new in the middle 1880s. Share this page Change of Subject: For our out of town guests: Why Chicago is called `the Windy City' Special to the Tribune Dec. 7, 2004 They don't call it the Windy City for nothing," said an ESPN announcer during a recent Northwestern football game, as the camera showed the wind whipping the flags atop Ryan Field. But consult most tour books or talk to city history buffs, and they'll gleefully point out that the nickname Windy City originally referred not to lake breezes but to Chicago's long-winded politicians. The Chicago Public Library supports this definition. "In the early part of the nineteenth century, Chicago promoters went up and down the East Coast loudly promoting Chicago as an excellent place to invest. Detractors claimed they were full of wind," the library says on its Web site. "Later, Chicago and New York were competing to hold the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, wrote an editorial advising against the 'nonsensical claims of that windy city.

Its people could not hold a world's fair even if they won it.' This editorial is widely credited with popularizing the 'Windy City' nickname." The Chicago Historical Society's Web site agrees that Dana "dubbed" Chicago the Windy City. So do at least three pictorial guides to Chicago displayed at area bookstores, as well as Joel Greenberg's "A Natural History of the Chicago Region" (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and Erik Larson's recent best seller set in Chicago at the time of the Columbian Exhibition, "The Devil in the White City" (Crown, 2003). The Dana explanation has been printed over and over in the Tribune, the Sun-Times and The New York Times. There's just one problem. The Dana editorial is nowhere to be found, and no one can prove it was ever written. Etymologists say it's just a myth. In his new book "Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends" (Oxford University Press, 2004), etymologist Dave Wilton takes the City of Chicago -- and, yes, the Tribune -- to task for buying into the Dana story.

"It illustrates a very important point about urban legends: If they are repeated enough, they become accepted unconditionally as truth," Wilton writes. Wilton points out that no one has ever provided a date for the supposed editorial or supplied any other convincing evidence that Dana coined the nickname. Wilton adds that Mitford M. Mathews' "Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Prin-ciples," (University of Chicago Press, 1951) cited a "Windy City" reference to Chicago in the Louisville Courier-Journal from 1887, before the lobbying for the Columbian Exposition began. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the same article. Neither mentions Dana. Tim Samuelson, Chicago's cultural historian, has doubts about Dana's role too. Though he hasn't specifically investigated the term, he says he has come across uses of the nickname "Windy City" for Chicago as early as the 1880s. "Based on things I've seen in the course of other research, the concept predates Dana," he says.

Author Larson says he knows there are various theories on where "Windy City" got its start, but he supports the idea of editor Dana's influence during the rancorous exchanges between New York and Chicago over the world's fair. "Even if you're finding a reference from 1886 to `Windy City,' you have to think, when did it become the name that everybody knew?" Larson says. "It's not just when something first became a name that people heard, but when it became a name that stuck." Donald Miller, author of the landmark "City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America" (Simon & Schuster, 1996), says he deliberately avoided getting tangled up in the nickname debate. "I stayed away from this business because I could find no proof for the Dana story," he says. "I checked it out and found nothing I could go with as a reliable source." In response to a Tribune inquiry, the librarians at the Chicago Public Library compiled Tribune articles, letters and editorials that mention Dana and the Windy City nickname. Several Tribune news clippings from the 1890s discuss Dana's bellyaching about Chicago's bid to host the fair.

But the first direct link they could find between Dana and the nickname is a June 11, 1933, article in the Tribune titled "Chicago Dubbed `Windy' In Fight For Fair of '93." The article says Dana "fixed on us" the label by writing "day in and day out in his New York Sun" about "`the nonsensical claims of that windy city,'" but there is no specific text or date for the fabled Dana editorial coining the nickname. No one has found any example of Dana using that term for Chicago in the pages of his newspaper. There are, however, numerous Tribune responses in the 1890s to Dana's regular disparagement of the city. Popularized term The Chicago Public Library stands by the assertion on its Web site that Dana popularized the term "Windy City," even if he didn't coin it. "A lot of these articles indicate that Dana was a ringleader in questioning Chicago's ability to host the fair," says Margaret Killackey, the library's press secretary. "`Windy City' didn't become a household name until after the Dana references.

There had been isolated references to the Windy City, but a flurry of references in print show it was used repeatedly in many parts of the country around the time of the world's fair." Killackey adds, "Should something new be unearthed, we would look at that information. As of now, we feel confident that the phrase was popularized after the Dana editorial." The Encyclopedia of Chicago, published in October, isn't so sure Dana should get even that much credit. Its entry for "Windy City" was written by Jonathan Boyd, an independent historian and lifelong Chicagoan. "Chicago's exposed location between the Great Plains and the Great Lakes -- and the wind swirling amid the city's early skyscrapers -- lend credence to the literal application" of the nickname, even though the city "is not distinctively windy," the entry reads. It goes on to say that the city's bloviating boosters of the 19th Century have historically given "metaphorical . . . power" to the name "Windy City." The encyclopedia includes a picture of a newspaper clipping from the Sept.

19, 1885, edition of the Cleveland Gazette, provided by the Ohio Historical Society, in which a roundup of news briefs from Chicago is introduced by the headline "From The Windy City." Boyd says he was trying to capture the cultural significance of the term, rather than settle the nearly impossible question of who coined it and when. But he says the 1885 article was the earliest available example of its use when the encyclopedia went to press. The closest anyone has gotten to the truth about the "Windy City" nickname seems to be the research of etymologist Barry Popik. He says the earliest examples of the moniker for Chicago meant both wind and windbags, and Dana had nothing to do with it. And he's sick of people who can't get it straight. Popik, a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, spends his days working as a judge in New York City's bureau of parking violations. He spends his nights in libraries looking at old newspapers, microfiche and digital databases, hunting for early examples of famous nicknames and slang. Then he embarks on vigorous letter-writing campaigns to let everyone know what he has found.

In the mid-1990s, Popik set his sights on "Windy City," and started scanning hundreds of editions of the New York Sun -- a newspaper that was published from 1833 to 1950 -- in the New York Public Library. He couldn't find a single instance of Dana using the name "Windy City." Then Popik started looking further back, and in other newspapers, traveling to the Library of Congress to search through them. He found a Louisville Courier-Journal reference to "Windy City" in 1886 -- one year before the Oxford English Dictionary's first citing. He found the 1885 article from the Cleveland Gazette. He came across several examples from the early 1880s in newspapers such as the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, the Indiana Progress and the Decatur Daily Republican. Cincinnati connection Finally, Popik isolated a single source. "Windy City," he says, may have been coined by -- drum roll, please -- Cincinnati. Popik found numerous references to Chicago as the "Windy City" in the Cincinnati Enquirer in the late 1870s and early 1880s.

The oldest instance Popik has found is in the May 9, 1876, edition of the Enquirer, in a report about a tornado that hit Chicago on May 6. The headline read, "That Windy City." The Cincinnati Historical Society confirms his findings. Popik says the Enquirer headline had a double meaning in its era of civic name-calling, for Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis all vociferously claimed the right to be called the greatest city of the Midwest. "The Cincinnati Enquirer's use is clearly double-edged," Popik says. "They used the term for windy speakers who were full of wind, and there was a wind-storm in Chicago. It's both at once." The May 6 tornado may have provided a physical reason to use a figurative analogy. In its first report about the tornado on May 8, the Enquirer tastelessly quipped that the twister failed to damage the buildings in Chicago that "were so heavily weighed down with mortgages that no whirlwind could affect them." Popik says the Enquirer also printed several jokes that said Chicago women had big feet (if you don't find that hilarious, maybe you had to be there).

"The regional cities in the period leading up to the Civil War and afterward are constantly poking each other in the eye," says Boyd of the Encyclopedia of Chicago. "They need to build themselves up and tear others down.Boosterism is the rhetorical mode of rivalry. It's trash talk." Popik's findings have been available for years, posted at the American Dialect Society and his Web site ( ), published in the journal Comments on Etymology, and reported by the "Straight Dope" column of the Chicago Reader. Yet, to Popik's exasperation, the myth that Dana coined the name "Windy City" circa 1890 goes on and on. "These stories, you have to kill them," he says. "Not only kill them, but put a stake in their heart. You have to go to each individual source and say, `That's not true.'" Popik says if he were a history professor instead of a parking ticket judge, he would be taken more seriously, and this Windy City matter might have been settled by now. "He's completely right. There's no question about it," says Jesse Sheidlower, North American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. "Mr.

Popik's references solidly establish that `Windy City' was a Chicago nickname that preceded Dana and the fight to secure the world's fair," says Samuelson, Chicago's cultural historian. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Dana quote does indeed exist," he says, but adds, "Even if we had a specific reference to a Dana quotation, it's questionable what kind of role it would have played in giving `popularity' to the term, since it was already in circulation as a Chicago-related reference." Copyright Chicago Tribune, 2004. Article by Nathan Bierma. Posted at 10:39:59 AM Chicago, Second City and Windy City Origins Chicago, Second City and Windy City Origins What does the word “Chicago” mean? The official origin is that “Chicago” is the French version of the Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa (“Stinky Onion”), named for the garlic plant (not onion) Allium tricoccum common along the Chicago River.

However there have been many theories over the years, and here are some of them: Che-cau-gou – Indian tribe Chicagoua – Miami and Illinois word for “skunk” Chi-cago – Indian word for “thunder” Chicagou – Jesuit mission and French army post at the site of Marquette`s 1675 camp along the south branch Shecaugo – playful waters Chief Chicagou, also known as Agapit Chicagou – Native American leader of the Mitchigamea Windy City Though Chicago is widely known as the “Windy City”, it is not the windiest city in the United States; while Brockton, Massachusetts actually is. An explanation for Chicago being a naturally breezy area is that it is on the shores of Lake Michigan. Chicago is not significantly windier than any other U.S. city. For example, the average annual wind speed of Chicago is: 10.3 mph; Boston: 12.4 mph; New York City, Central Park: 9.3 mph; and Los Angeles: 7.5 mph.

The following “windy city” explanation is from the Freeborn County Standard of Albert Lea, Minnesota, on November 20, 1892: Chicago has been called the “windy” city, the term being used metaphorically to make out that Chicagoans were braggarts. The city is losing this reputation, for the reason that as people got used to it they found most of her claims to be backed up by facts. As usual, people go to extremes in this thing also, and one can tell a stranger almost anything about Chicago today and feel that he believes it implicitly. But in another sense Chicago is actually earning the title of the “windy” city. It is one of the effects of the tall buildings which engineers and architects apparently did not foresee that the wind is sucked down into the streets. Walk past the Masonic Temple or the Auditorium any day even though it may be perfectly calm elsewhere, and you will meet with a lively breeze at the base of the building that will compel you to put your hand to your hat. A Windy City Exposition, A Century of Progress, 1934 At the end of the nineteenth century, Cincinnati and Chicago were two cities in a bitter rivalry.

Since the 1840s, Cincinnati had been known for its meatpacking trade, proudly touting the somewhat unsavory moniker, Porkopolis. In the early 1860s Chicago overtook Cincinnati in meat production and started bragging that they were indeed the Porkopolis of the United States. This obviously incensed the people of Cincinnati to no end. The baseball inter-city matches were especially intense. The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were the pride of all of baseball, so Chicago came up with a rival team called the White Stockings to defeat them. “Windy City” often appeared in the Cincinnati sporting news of the 1870s and 1880s. Chicago’s White Stockings were short-lived as the Great Chicago Fire consumed their uniforms and did not return to competition till 1874. Four of the first known citations of “Windy City” are from 1876, all involving Cincinnati: Cincinnati Enquirer, May 9, 1876, headline: “THAT WINDY CITY.

Some Freaks of the Last Chicago Tornado.” Cincinnati Enquirer, May 13, 1876: “Only the plucky nerve of the eating-house keeper rescued the useful seats from a journey to the Windy City.” Chicago Tribune, April, 20, 1876, headline: “The WINDY CITY Jay-Rollers La-Crosse Team Wins Inaugural Game against Cincinnati Nannies.” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1876: “The Cincinnati Enquirer, in common with many other papers, has been waiting with great anxiety for the fulfillment of its prophecy: that the Chicago papers would call the Whites hard names when they lost. Witness these scraps the day after the Whites lost to the Athletics: There comes a wail to us from the Windy City.” For the Cincinnati papers, “Windy City” had meant a Chicago that was full of bluster. Chicago’s new nickname stuck—and spread. In 1890, several U.S. cities were bidding for the privilege to hold a World’s Fair that would not only celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus, but outdo the extravagant fair that took place in Paris in 1889.

Even though people thought New York City had it in the bag, Chicago kept bragging, day in and day out, that they were the perfect metropolis for the fair. Charles A. Dana of the New York Sun, tired of Chicago’s bluster, wrote: “Don’t pay any attention to the nonsensical claims of that windy city. Its people could not build a World’s Fair even if they won it.” On Manhattan Day, 22 October, Manhattan’s Representatives were treated with royal hospitality by the citizens of Chicago No exhibit to the Fair is to be compared with Chicago itself. Built and rebuilt in little more than half a century, it stands to-day as truly one of the wonders of the worlds as the Pyramids of Egypt. As the Exposition draws to a close amid signs of a popular appreciation justify its due: ‘We congratulate you, citizens of Chicago.’ You have made us more proud than ever to be Americans. Who can say, after witnessing such displays of brotherhood, that Manhattan Day was not the greatest day of a succession of great days in the history of the World’s Columbian Exposition, for the same reason that forbearance and friendliness are greater than rivalry and envy.

Seth Low, President of Columbia College via The New York Times, 22 October 1893 Chicago’s “Hawk” Wind Chicago’s wind is often called “The Hawk”. This term has long been popular in African American Vernacular English. The Baltimore Sun‘s series of columns in 1934, attempted to examine the origin of the phrase, “Hawkins is coming”, for a cold, winter wind. The first recorded Chicago citation is in the Chicago Defender, 20 October 1936: “And these cold mornings are on us—in other words ‘Hawkins’ has got us.” The first line of Steve Goodman’s song, “Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request”, is “By the shores of old Lake Michigan / Where the Hawk Wind blows so cold…” The introduction of Lou Rawls’ “Dead End Street” explains “The Hawk” pretty well.

I was born in a city that they call “The Windy City” And I said “one day I’m ‘onna return And I’m gonna straighten it all out” And I’m ’bout ready to go back now So I thought I’d tell you about it Songwriters: Sly Dunbar / Ewart Everton Brown / Herbert Harris / N. Barnett / Clifton Dillon / B. Jordan / R. Shaw. © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC Wind bracing was recognized as a necessity for the first time in the the Manhattan building (1890) which was the city’s first 16 floor building, In the north half of the Monadnock (1891), the first attempt was made at a portal system of wind bracing. The first use of knee bracing, an adaption of the portal system which has since became popular, was in the Isabella building (1892).

Snowstorms The Blizzard of ’79 1979 New Year’s Day Blizzard 1999 Snowpocalypse 2011 Chiberia 2014 Second City For decades, Chicago was second to New York in city population rankings and New Yorker magazine writer Abbott J. Liebling used the term as a title for his 1950s tongue-in-cheek book titled, Chicago: The Second City. The book was not well received. Today, Chicago is actually the third largest city in the United States following New York and Los Angeles. Liebling, however, did not originate the Chicago nickname. Chicago was often referred to as the “second city” during the battle with New York as the selection for the site of the Columbian Exposition. At that time Chicago annexed a large portion of the south side and her population was approaching New York levels. New York responded by combining all five boroughs and never looked back. Los Angeles surpassed Chicago’s in 1984. But, there is another way of looking at the term. Chicago burned in 1871 and it provided the residents an opportunity to build a new and better constructed city – this time, not of wood.

To Chicagoans, the Great Fire meant a “do-over.” Thus, Chicago today, is the second city, the first being pre-fire. And, many historians separate Chicago’s history into pre and post fire. In Mayer’s and Wade’s 1969 The Growth of a Metropolis, a chapter was entitled “The Second City” enforcing this theory. "Windy City" "Windy City" "Windy City" "From the Windy City" Chicago's exposed location between the Great Plains and the Great Lakes —and the wind swirling amidst the city's early skyscrapers —lend credence to the literal application of this famous nickname dating from the late 1800s, but it is a favorite observation of tour guides and reference books that in fact Chicago's climate is not distinctively windy.

(The same moniker is shared by Wellington, New Zealand, where it is more precisely meteorological.) The power of the name lies in the metaphorical use “windy” for “talkative” or “boastful.” Chicago politicians early became famous for long-windedness, and the Midwestern metropolis's central location as a host city for political conventions helped cement the association of Chicago with loquacious politicians, thus underlying the nickname with double meaning. Perhaps even more important, however, isearly Chicagoans' boosterism, or self-promotion. During the mid-1800s nearly any city could (and did) proclaim itself the ascendant “Metropolis of the West.” Boosters' arguments emphasized the superabundance of their locale's natural advantages and the inevitability of its preeminence, boasting that in fact they had no need to boast. Such was the “windiness” of Chicagoans, as they sought to secure investment, workers, and participation in projects of national scope such as the building of railroads and the provision of Civil War matériel.

Early uses of the term appear in Cleveland (1885) and Louisville (1886) newspapers, and the 1885 appearance of the label in a headline suggests the possibility that this was not its initial invocation. It may well have been Chicago's urban rivals who coined a nickname, in derision, which has come to be adopted with pride. Jonathan Boyd The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2005 Chicago Historical Society. The Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2004 The Newberry Library. All Rights Reserved. Portions are copyrighted by other institutions and individuals. Additional information on copyright and permissions. 100 Cities and Their Nicknames | Travel Away 100 Cities and Their Nicknames Last updated on 9 Feb 2016 | By Miruna Corneanu I like nicknames. They define us better than our names, they are clever and funny, and they tell so much about our personality and sometimes, about our aspect, although this might be the worst case. I’ve had plenty of nicknames from “Bal” and “Maimu” to “Blondy”, but now everyone calls me by using diminutives of my name.

That’s why when someone calls me “Miruna”, I know there’s something wrong going on. I know the Internet is full of lists with cities’ nicknames, but I decided to make my own, composed of the world’s most important cities, and I hope this will be useful for my readers. 1. Paris – The City of Love, The City of Light, La Ville-Lumiere 2. Prague – The City of Hundred Spires, The Golden City, The Mother of Cities 3. New York – The Big Apple 4. Las Vegas – Sin City 5. Chicago – The Windy City 6. Vancouver – The Big Smoke 7. Montreal – La Belle Ville, Frenchtown, The City-Mountain 8. Los Angeles – The City of Angels 9. New Orleans – The Big Easy 10. Philadelphia – City of Brotherly Love, Philly 11. Amsterdam – Venice of the North 12. Venice – La Serenissima, Bride of the Sea 13. Vienna – The Imperial City 14. London – The Square Mile, The Old Smoke, The Smoke 15. Detroit – Motor City 16.

Miami – The Magic City, Little Cuba 17. Memphis – Bluff City 18. Petra – The Rose Red City 19. Pittsburgh – Iron City 20. Rome – The Eternal City, City of the Seven Hills 21. Seattle – The Emerald City 22. Bucharest – Little Paris 23. Florence – The City of Lilies 24. Barcelona – The City of Counts, The City of Gaudi 25. Budapest – Pearl of the Danube 26. Toronto – Queen City, Muddy York, The Big Toe 27. Dublin – The Fair City 28. Jerusalem – The Holy City 29. Boston – The Hub 31. Moscow – The Whitestone, The Forty Forties, Third Rome 32. Edinburgh – Auld Reekie 33. Geneva – The Peace Capital 34. Rio de Janeiro – Marvelous City 35. Salzburg – White City 36. Mumbai – The City of Dreams 37. Singapore – The Lion City 38. Naples – City of the Sun 39.

Bologna – Red City; La Dotta, La Rossa, La Grassa (the educated, the red, the fat) 40. Torino – City of Four Rivers 41. Genova – The Superb 43. Milano – Fashion Capital of the World, The Drinkable City 44. Cairo – Paris of the Nile 45. Buenos Aires – Paris of the Americas, Queen of the Plata 46. Ushuaia – The End of the World 47. Melbourne – City by the Bay, Bleak City, Europe of Australia 48. Sydney – The Harbour City 50. Sao Paulo – Brazil’s Locomotive, Land of Drizzle, Sampa 51. Dubrovnik – The Pearl of the Adriatic 52. Helsinki – The White City of the North 53. Bordeaux – City of Wine 54. Nice – Angels City 55. Berlin – The Grey City 56. Jaipur – The Pink City 57. Oslo – Tiger Town 58. Warsaw – Default City, Big Village in the Middle of Nowhere 59.

St Petersburg – The Mind of Russia 60. Madrid – El Foro, The Forum 61. Athens – The City of Violet Crown 62. Dallas – Big D 63. Hong Kong – Pearl of the Orient 64. Munich – World City with Heart 65. Birmingham – The City of a Thousand Trades, Brum 66. Lisbon – City With a Future 67. The Hague – City of Peace and Justice 68. Calcutta – City of Palaces, City of Love, City of Joy 69. Beijing – The Forbidden City 70. Adelaide – City of Churches 71. Zagreb – Little Vienna 72. Bruges – Venice of the North 73. Marseille – Phocean City 74. Tel Aviv – The City that Never Stops 75. Bolzano – The Door to the Dolomites, The German One 76. Sanremo – The City of Dreams 77. Tivoli – City of Delights 78. Vicenza – City of Gold 79. Kuala Lumpur – Golden Triangle 80.

Cuernavaca – The City of Eternal Spring 81. Tijuana – Television Capital of the World 82. Rotterdam – Manhattan upon Meuse 83. Lima – City of the Kings 84. Manila – City by the Bay 85. Porto – The Invincible City 86. Cadiz – The Little Silver Cup 87. Bilbao – El Bocho 88. Zurich – Little Big City 89. Kiev – The Mother of Rus’ Cities 90. Honolulu – Sheltered Bay 92. Wroclaw – City of Hundred Bridges 93. Beirut – Paris of the Middle East 94. Udine – Capital of the Great War 95. Ancona – Doric City 96. Tehran – The City of 72 Nations 97. Bangalore – The City of Gardens 98. Leipzig – Bimbo Town 99. Split – The Diocletian’s City 100. Grenoble – Capital of the Alps Do you know other cities’ nicknames?

Don't be selfish, share this with your friends You May Also Like City nicknames The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best". — H. Allen Smith City nicknames The following is my list of City Nicknames, started around 1993. I had collected suggestions from the rec.games.trivia newsgroup, and had heard someone on KGO (San Francisco's AM news-talk radio station) use the phrase "... 10,000 residents of The City, of complications from ...". So I appropriated that phrase "The City of Complications", as an exceptionally apt nickname for San Francisco, and went on to collect a few other names. When I had enough of them, I posted the list to that newsgroup. So far, I have only been able to re-locate the quiz version of my list, so I haven't actually merged all of the answers back into the list yet. This past year or two (2001-2002), I added a few from the "Isaac Asimov" quiz column in the newspaper, a Sunset Magazine article (which lists California as the "World Capital of Agricultural World Capitals"), and other sources.

I also found two other lists on the web (URLs below). I now keep this merged version in both ~landauer/lists/CityOf.html and the stories link in my Radio Weblog, . The one at ~landauer/CityOf_was.html is older. Other web locations that have some similar lists include: ~rksnow/mottos.htm is (today) the top Google result for City nicknames , with good reason. "COMMUNITY MOTTOS & NICKNAMES" looks like they've been actively collecting these for a lot longer than I have.

The Trivia asylum Most recent additions (8 February 2003): Albany, OR; Alpine, TX; Beaver, OK; Bemidji, MN; Brainerd, MN; Bristol, TN; Burlington, Iowa; Cody, WY; Douglas, WY; Frannie, WY; Gallup, NM; Granby, CO; Isleton, CA; Laramie, WY; Lowell, WY; Meeteetse, WY; New York (as "Never Sleeps"); Noxubee County, Alabama; Philadelphia, PA; Rockport, MA; Santa Rosa, NM; Sonora, CA; Sturgis, Michigan; Taxco, Mexico; Tijuana, Mexico; Westwood, CA.

My List of City Nicknames: City Nickname Aberdeen, Scotland The Granite City Akron, OH Rubber City Albany, Georgia Good Life City Albany, ORHome of the Timber Carnival Alexandria, Egypt Pearl of the Mediterranean Allentown, Pennsylvania Cement City Alpine, TXGateway to the Big Bend Annapolis, Maryland Crabtown Atlanta, GA The Athens of the South Atlanta, GA The City Too Busy to Hate Atlanta, GA Dogwood City Atlanta, GA Gate City of the South Auckland, NZ City of Sails Baltimore, Maryland Charm City Baltimore, Maryland Monument City Banaras, India Luminous City Bandon, OR Storm Capital of the World Bangkok, Thailand Venice of the East Beaver, OKCow Chip Throwing Capital of the World Bemidji, MNHome of Paul Bunyan & Babe, the Blue Ox (see Brainerd and Westwood) Beograd The White City Bickleton, WA Bluebird Capital of the World Birmingham, AL Pittsburgh of the South Boston, MA The Athens of America Boston, MA Beantown Boston, MA The City of Kind Hearts Boston, MA The Cradle of Liberty Boston, MA The Hub of the Universe Boston, MA Puritan City Brainerd, MNHome of Paul Bunyan & Babe, the Blue Ox —

 The legend on the Brainerd city limits sign shows up in the film "Fargo".

(See Bemidji and Westwood) Bristol, TNFood City Brandon, Manitoba The Wheat City Bucharest, Romania The Little Paris Budapest, Hungary The Pearl of the Danube Buffalo, New York Bison City Buffalo, New York Flour City Buffalo, NY The City of Good Neighbors Buffalo, NY The Nickel City Buffalo, NY The Queen City (of the Great Lakes) Burlington, IowaLoader/Backhoe Capital of the World Butte, Montana Copper City Byran, Ohio The Fountain City Calgary, Alberta, Canada The Stampede City Calgary, Alberta, Canada The Heart of The New West (that's the New Convention and Visitors Bureau slogan) Calgary, Alberta, Canada Canada's oil capital (Because of high concentration of oil company head offices, as in Houston) Cape Girardeau, Missouri Rose City Cape Hatteras, North Carolina The Graveyard of the Atlantic Castroville, CA Artichoke Center of the World Champaign-Urbana, IL Chambana Champaign-Urbana, IL Shampoo-Bananna Champaign-Urbana, IL Urpaign Charleston, South Carolina America's Most Historic City Charleston, South CarolinaPalmetto City Charlotte, North Carolina Hornets Nest Charlotte, North Carolina Queen City Chicago, Illinois Big Town Chicago City of

 Big Shoulders Chicago, Illinois Hog Butcher for the World Chicago Slaughterhouse to the World Chicago, Illinois Phoenix City Chicago, Illinois Second City Chicago The Windy City Christchurch, NZ The Garden City Cincinnati, Ohio Queen City Cleveland, Ohio Mistake on the Lake Cleveland, OH America's North Coast Cody, WYRodeo Capital of the World Columbus, OH The Crossroads of Ohio Cooperstown, New York Birthplace of Baseball Council Bluffs, Iowa Iowa's Leading Edge Crestwood (Louisville), KYWhiskers Cuernavaca, Morelos, MexicoThe City of Eternal Spring Dallas, Texas Big D Dayton, Ohio Birthplace of Aviation Denver, Colorado City of the Plains Denver, Colorado Convention City Denver, CO Mile High City Denver, Colorado Queen City Detroit, MI Motown Detroit, MI Motor City Dipolog City, Philippines Orchid City Douglas, WYJackalope Capitol [sic] of the World — I vaguely recall that one of the main promoters and/or inventor of the Jackelope died within the last few months.

Durham, NC City of Medicine Durham, NC Bull City Edinburgh, Scotland Athens of the North Erie, Pennsylvania The Gem Eskilstuna, Sweden Smedstan (The smith City) Fallbrook, CA Avocado Capital of the World Florence, Italy The City of Lillies Fort Myers, Florida The City of Palms Frannie, WYBiggest Little Town in Wyoming Gainesville, Florida Hogtown Gallup, NMDrunk-Driving Capital of America Gilroy, CA Garlic Capital of the World Gotland, Sweden Pearl of the Baltic Göteborg, Sweden Götet Granby, COSnowmobile Capital of Colorado Grants Pass, Oregon"It's the Climate" ...

see Grants Pass, OregonWhere the Rogue River Runs Greenfield, CA Broccoli Capital of the World Hammondsport, New York Cradle of Aviation Hawthorne, CA The City of Good Neighbors (2) Hershey, PAChocolate Town, USA Hollywood Hollyweird Hollywood Tinseltown Holtville, CA Carrot Capital of the World Hong Kong Pearl of the Orient Hood River, Oregon (Columbia Gorge) Windsurfing Capital of the World Hoople, North DakotaTater Town Houston, Texas Magnolia City Indianapolis, Indiana Naptown Indianapolis, Indiana Circle City Indianapolis, Indiana Railroad City Indio, CA Date Capital of the World International Falls, Minnesota The Icebox of the United States Isleton, CACrawdad Town, USA Jackson, Mississippi Chimneyville Jaipur The Pink City Jerusalem City of David Jerusalem City of Peace Jönköping, SwedenSmålands Jerusalem Kalamazoo, Michigan Celery City Kansas City, Kansas Heart of America Kokomo, Indiana City of Firsts Kristianstad, Sweden Lilla Paris (rare these days) Keizer, OR Iris Capital of the World Kelseyville, CA Pear Capital of the World (but see here ).

Laramie, WYGem City of the Plains Las VegasSin City Las VegasEntertainment Capital of the World Las VegasCity of Lights Las Vegas, Nevada (downtown)Glitter Gulch Las Vegas, Nevada (downtown)The Strip Letchworth (UK, near Cambridge) The first Garden City in the World Lodi, CAThe [Tokay] Grape Capital of the World (probably more popularly known as the place where Creedence Clearwater Revival got stuck in once, in the 1960's.) London, England The Square Mile London's financial district The City of London London, Ontario The Forest City Los Angeles The Big Orange Los Angeles City of Angels Los Angeles, California City of Flowers and Sunshine Los Angeles La La Land Los Banos City of the Spring Baths Louisville, Kentucky City of Beautiful Churches Louisville, Kentucky Falls City Lowell, WYThe Rose City of Wyoming Madison, Wisconsin Four Lake City Manila, Philippines Pearl of the Orient Mar del Plata, Argentina Queen of the Coast Marysville, California Gateway to the Gold Fields Medellin, Columbia Orchid City Meeteetse, WYWhere Chiefs Meet Melbourne, AustraliaCity of Chromatic Dissolution (not a real nickname, but I really liked the phrase.

I'll have to dig up the film , someday.) Memphis, TN Bluff City Memphis, TN The City that Elvis Ruined (I get a Googlewhack for that one! Today, anyway.) Miami, Florida Little Cuba Miami, Florida Magic City Milwaukee, Wisconsin Cream City Minneapolis, Minnesota Flour City Minneapolis The Mini Apple Minneapolis/St.

Paul, MN The Twin Cities Mobile, Alabama City of Five Flags Montreal, Canada The City of Saints Mountain Iron, Minnesota Taconite Capital of the World Moyobamba, Peru Orchid City Nashville, TN Music City, USA New Haven, Connecticut Elm City New Orleans The Big Easy New Orleans The Crescent City New York The Big Apple New York The Capital of the World New YorkThe City that Never Sleeps New York Gotham New York Empire City New York The Melting Pot New York/Manhattan The City Norrköping, Sweden Peking Noxubee County, Alabama Home of the Dancing Rabbit Festival and Magnolia Pilgrimage (I know, it's not really a city, but how could I pass up a phrase like that?) Oakdale, CA Cowboy Capital of the World Oakland, CA Oaktown Oroville, CA City of Gold Oxford City of Dreaming Spires Oxnard, CA Strawberry Capital of the World (but see here ).

Paris City of Light Pasadena, CA City of Roses Patterson, CA Apricot Capital of the World Pearsonville, CA Hubcap Capital of the World Petaluma, CA Egg Basket of the World Petra The Rose Red City Philadelphia City of Brotherly Love Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Rebel Capital Philadelphia, PAMortal City (per Dar Williams) Pittsburgh, PA Steel City Pittsburgh, PA The 'Burgh Pittsburgh, PA Iron City Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The Birmingham of America Pittsburgh, PA (downtown) Golden Triangle Pittsburgh, PA (downtown) Three Rivers Pittsburgh, PA (region) City of Bridges Placerville, CA Hangtown Portland, Maine Forest City Portland, Maine Hill City Portland, Oregon City of Roses Prague, Czech Republic The Golden City Providence, Rhode Island Beehive of Industry Quebec The Gibraltar of North America Queenstown, NZ Extreme Sports Capital of the World Redmond, WA Mordor Redmond, WA Nerdburg Reno, NV The Biggest Little City in the World Reseda, CA The Hub of the West Valley (That's the San Fernando Valley) Rigby, IdahoBirthplace of TV There's a museum here, the "TV and Pioneer Museum" .

When I drove through, it made me wonder jest which of those Conestoga wagons had TVs, and how good the reception was. Rincon (Santa Barbara County), California Queen of the Coast Surfers' term. Not really a city. Rochester, New York Kodak City Rochester, New York Snapshot City Rockport, MAThe Mendocino of the East Rogue River Valley, OR Pear Capital of the World (but see here ).

Rome The City of the Seven Hills Rome, Italy The Eternal City Rome, Italy City of Love Rye, New York Border Town Sacramento, California River City Saint Louis, MOGateway to the West (or "The Gateway City") Saint Paul, MinnesotaMoscow on the Mississippi Saint Petersburg, Russia Venice of the North Salem, Massachusetts City of Witches Samal, Philipines Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCoS) San Antonio, Texas Alamo City San Antonio, Texas Mission City San Diego, California The Plymouth of the West San Diego, CA America's Finest City San Francisco, California The Golden Gate City San Francisco, California Shaky Town San Francisco, CA Baghdad by the Bay San Francisco, CA The City North San Jose, CA The Golden Triangle Santa Fe, New Mexico The City Different Santa Rosa, NMThe SCUBA-diving capital of New Mexico Saratoga Springs, New York Spa City Savannah, Georgia Garden City Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario The SOO Sault Ste.

Marie, MI (I think) The SOO Seattle, WA The Emerald City Selma, CA Raisin Capital of the World Shah Alam, Malaysia Orchid City Sonora, CAThe Queen of the Southern Mines Sri Lanka Pearl of the Indian Ocean (I know, not really a city.) Stockholm Eken (The Oak) Stockholm Venice of the North Stockton, CA California's Sunrise Seaport Sturgis, MichiganCurtain Rod Capital of the World Sundbyberg, Sweden Sumpan Syracuse, New York Salt City Taxco, MexicoSilver Capital of the World Thousand Oaks, CA T.O. Tijuana, MexicoTelevision Capital of the World Toledo, Ohio Corn City Toronto, Ontario Hogtown Toronto, Ontario Muddy York (archaic, I think) Toronto, Ontario T.O.

Toronto, Ontario Toronto the Good (sometimes pejorative) Toronto, Ontario Trawna or Trahna Toronto, Ontario, Canada Queen City Tulelake, CA Horseradish Capital of the World Umeå, SwedenBjörkarnas stad (The city of the birches) (Historic) Vancouver, B.C., CanadaGastown Venice, Italy Bride of the Sea Venice, Italy Queen of the Adriatic Värnersborg, SwedenLilla Paris (Little Paris) Västerås Gurkstan (The Cucumber City) Vicksburg, Mississippi The Gibraltar of America Victoria, Australia The Cabbage Patch Victoria, B.C., Canada Little England Walla Walla, WA The Town So Nice They Named It Twice Walla Walla, WA Walla2 Walla Walla, WA Wallyworld Washington D.C. Capital City Washington D.C. News Capital of the World Waterbury, Connecticut Brass City Wenatchee, WA Apple Capital of the World West Hollywood, CA Boystown West Hollywood, CA The Creative City West Palm Beach, Florida Orchid City Westwood, CAHome of Paul Bunyan & Babe, the Blue Ox It seems that a celebrity like Paul Bunyan has several homes.

I've actually seen him here in Westwood — and note that this is the Lassen County Westwood. (See and also see Brainerd and Bemidji.) Wheeling, West Virginia Nail City Wichita, Kansas Emerald City Windsor, Ontario Tijuana North NOTES: I used to have some of the following ones in the main list. I have moved these here mostly for not being unique enough (i.e., Google found too many candidates for the given honor). I should probably move all of the "Queen City"s down here, too. A recent contributor mentioned Coos Bay, Oregon as having (had) the official motto "City With a Future".

Alas, Google says that this is one of the too-common ones: Lansing, KS; Mankato, MN (had this motto in 1912); Yokosuka, Japan; Ruda [approx equal]öl[florin]Öska, Poland; Massillon, Ohio; Fulton, NY?; Monett, MO; ¬¶widnica, Poland; Lisbon, Portugal; Sumner, Iowa; St Louis, MO; Tremonton, Utah And it has a few variations: Altus, Oklahoma: "City with a Future to Share" Kenai, Alaska: "THE VILLAGE WITH A PAST - THE CITY WITH A FUTURE" Lowell, Arkansas: "Town with a Past, City with a Future" Beersheba: "A place with a past, a city with a future" "City of Champions" (Joliet, Illinois; Brockton, Massachusetts; Duncanville, Texas; Lilburn, Georgia; Edmonton, Alberta; Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). (Pittsburgh has really really bad Google-juice.

I have a vague recollection that it (and Edmonton) were the two "City of Champions"s on my original list. But Pittsburgh is way down low on the Google-meter search for "City of Champions".) "City of Gold" (Gold Beach, OR; Oroville, California; Cite de l'or, Quebec; Gold Coast City in Australia; Victor, Colorado; etc) "City of Love" (Glasgow, San Francisco, Calcutta, Paris) "City of Roses" — Pasadena, California (my first home town) has held the Rose Parade for more than a century now; this gives it first dibs on this monicker. I had also seen Portland, Oregon referred to this way. But Google gives the nod to ?Cape Girardeau, Missouri??? Weird.

The "City That Time Forgot" (Baldwin Park, CA; Galena, IL; New Orleans; Tikal, Guatemala; Bruges/Brugge, Belgium; and a host of others) Cowtown (Both Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta; Chicago; Columbus, OH; Dallas; Kansas City; Wichita, KS; et al) "The All-American City" (I gather there's an award by this name, whose value is enormously diluted by the fact that it is bestowed annually on 10 cities. It is the National Civic League that does this.) Here are a few of the winners, plus other places that claim this title either on the web, or in email I've seen lately: Tri-Cities of TN/VA; Ocean City, MD; Tuscaloosa-Northport Tupelo MI; Roswell, NM; Santa Clara, CA; Delray Beach, FL; South Miami, FL; Fort Dodge, IA; Howard County, MD; Ocean City, MD; Independence, MO; Bozeman, MT; Fayetteville, NC; Brownsville, TX; Allentown, PA The End of the World.

(Not to be confused with The End of the Internet , of which there are also a whole bunch). Trosa, Sweden; Ushuaia, Argentina; Anchorage, AK; Gibraltar Gateway to the Rockies (Denver and Aurora Colorado; and Calgary, Hinton, and Banff, Alberta. Probably dozens of others.) Devin T McLaughlin suggested a bunch of nicknames for Calgary; some ("Entrepreneurial City" and "Volunteer City") failed the google test (didn't really show up at all), and Cowtown fails in the other direction (see above). Cotton Capital of { World, USA, Western Australia, etc... } "The Garden City" is an unusual one: there appear to be a number of cities with "Garden" as a part of their real names, which makes it a bit hard to sift out and locate the one(s) where it's just a nickname. I left three of these in the main list; Christchurch is Phil Pearson's fault, and the others came from a Google search to see if the nickname was too common for my tastes. pre-Thanksgiving update: Hogtown goes to Toronto mainly, though Gainesville put in a strong enough #2 showing.

So at this point, only one of the nicknames from my original list remains unidentified -- i.e., I haven't quite figured out with enough certainty to put it back in place yet: "The Paris of the 1980's". Maybe Seattle. Gaining no confidence from Google, I'll probably just drop that one. And the other two cities that I didn't find matches for are in Ontario, Canada — Copetown and Welland. My google efforts did not come up with any nickname for either. These will have to wait until I re-locate my original list or check some of the other sites I've listed above. Thanks to Erland, Margaret, Phil, Devin, Drew, Isaac, Kunaal, Dave Letterman, the film "Fargo", and anyone else who contributed suggestions! © Copyright 2006 Doug Landauer . Windiest City in America - Current Results Current Results Windiest Cities in the United States by Liz Osborn CurrentResults.com The windiest city in the United States is not the one nicknamed the "Windy City". Among large cities, Chicago ranks twelfth for fastest average wind speed.

America's windiest major city is Boston, where overall the wind blows two miles per hour faster than in Chicago. Boston and Chicago are two of thirteen large US cities with year-round winds averaging above 10 mph. The major cities included in the weather rankings here represent the metropolitan areas in the United States with the most people , all those with over one million residents in 2010, according to the US Census Bureau. Average annual wind speed of the windiest US cities (in miles per hour and kilometres per hour) City

Question: Which American city is nicknamed "The Windy City"?
Answer: Chicago